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How to Sabotage Your Optical Practice and Watch Customers Walk Out
Just a heads-up: this is satire.
We’re about to walk you through all the wonderfully terrible decisions an optical practice can make. Not because you should follow them, but because doing the opposite is what successful practices actually do. Read it, laugh a little, maybe cringe if something feels familiar… and then jump to “Alternatively…” for the real advice. If you’ve ever dreamed of fewer bookings, grumpier patients, and a team that threatens to quit every month – this is your guide. Every “tip” below will help you tank your practice, empty your schedule, and give your accountant a minor breakdown. If failure is the goal, you’re in exactly the right place.
What you’ll learn
- How to stay invisible online while competitors steal your patie
- How to make your shop uninviting and your stock invisible
- How to annoy customers so thoroughly they leave one-star reviews
- How to hire badly, train worse, and burn through staff faster than a discount bin
Make your shop as unwelcoming as possible
Never change your window display
Same frames, same posters, same dust for six months. Passers-by will assume you’ve closed. Perfect.
Design a layout that confuses and frustrates
Make sure customers can’t tell where to start or where the till is. Block sightlines with tall displays. Create dead ends. Put kids’ frames next to progressive lenses and hide all signage. Force people to ask for help three times before they find anything. Even better—place your consultation area right at the entrance so everyone walking past can watch and eavesdrop. Privacy? Overrated.
Keep the floor cluttered and the atmosphere tense
Stack boxes in corners. Leave cables trailing. Use harsh fluorescent lighting that hums and flickers. Play no music, or play terrible music too loud. Let the air get stuffy. Make seating uncomfortable or nonexistent. Ensure there’s nowhere to put a coat or bag. The vibe should scream “get in, get out, don’t linger.” Bonus points if staff look stressed and customers feel like they’re interrupting something important.
Ignore the power of comfort and flow
Don’t think about how people move through space. Forget about creating moments of discovery or delight. Avoid cosy try-on zones or well-lit mirrors. Make frame selection feel like work, not play. If customers leave without trying anything on, mission accomplished.
Arrange frames like a jumble sale
Mix kids’ glasses with high-fashion acetates. Hide the new arrivals at the back. Use lighting that makes everything look grey. Customers won’t find anything, and they’ll leave empty-handed.
Stock what you like, not what sells
Buy deep on slow movers because the rep was charming. Run out of bestsellers weekly. Let cash gather dust on the shelves instead of in the till.
Use tiny mirrors that make people look tired
Bad angles, harsh lighting, no flattering spots. They’ll blame the glasses and leave.
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Price like you’re allergic to profit
Discount everything, always
Train customers to wait for your quarterly “20% off everything” sale. Watch margins vanish and wonder why you’re always skint.
Sell one pair per person, forever
Ignore the fact that people need different glasses for screens, driving, and reading. One pair fits all, right? Complaints will follow.
Guess your prices
No analysis, no strategy, just vibes. Mystery pricing keeps life exciting until the bank calls.
Rush everything and hope it works
Speed through eye tests
One pass, no double-checks, no verification. If the prescription doesn’t work by lunchtime, tell them to “get used to it.”
Skip the important questions
Don’t ask about screen time, driving at night, or what they actually do all day. Just write the numbers and move on. The glasses will fail, but that’s their problem.
Ignore how the frame actually fits
Who cares about vertex distance or tilt? The lab will sort it. (Spoiler: they won’t.)
Offer one progressive lens for everyone
Simplify life. Ignore the fact that a truck driver and a graphic designer need different corridor lengths. Adaptation issues are free marketing, right?
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Book a presentation
Make unhappy customers wait forever
Book follow-ups two weeks out
“Not quite right” becomes “I’ll just live with it” or “I’ll leave a terrible review.” Either way, problem solved.
Fight every remake request
Question the patient, defend the process, delay approval. (A remake is when you have to redo the glasses because they’re not right—wrong prescription, poor fit, or adaptation failure—usually at your cost. They kill profit and trust, so naturally, you’ll want lots of them.)
Never check in after the sale
No texts, no calls. Let problems fester until they explode publicly online.
Hire badly, train never
Hire the first person who walks in
References? Skills? Nah. Just fill the gap and hope for the best.
Throw them straight onto the shop floor
No training, no checklist, no mentor. “Figure it out” is a teaching method, right?
Keep targets secret
Don’t tell staff what success looks like. Change the rules weekly. Watch them quit.
Reward time served, not results
Your best performers will leave. Your worst will stay forever. Brilliant.
Run the place like it’s 1987
Keep records on paper and sticky notes
Scatter appointments, invoices, and patient notes across three systems. Every handoff will fail beautifully.
No reminders, no recalls
Let patients forget their appointments. Watch 20% of your diary evaporate weekly.
Proudly refuse modern practice management systems
Why would you want appointments, client records, messaging, and invoicing in one place when you can juggle spreadsheets, notebooks, and memory instead? Centralised systems like Glasson might coordinate everything across locations and devices, making life easier for your team and patients—but where’s the chaos in that? Modern tools automate reminders, track stock, and give you real-time dashboards. Terrible idea. Much better to wing it daily, lose track of who’s due for recall, and let no-shows surprise you. If competitors are using slick systems to run circles around you, just ignore them. Inefficiency builds character.
Avoid anything that saves time or reduces errors
Who needs automation? Chaos builds character.
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Stay invisible to new customers
Ignore online reviews
Don’t ask for them, don’t reply to them. Let your 3.2-star average speak for itself.
Post on social media once a year
Make it a hard sell. No personality, no replies. Maximum effort, zero return.
Let your Google listing rot
Wrong hours, old photos, no updates. Competitors will thank you.
Never measure anything
Don’t track remakes—glasses that need redoing because they’re not right, eating your profit. Don’t count no-shows—the patients who ghost appointments and hollow out your diary. Don’t measure first-fit success—how many people walk out happy at first collection, no fixes needed. Don’t ask how many leave reviews or buy two pairs. Ignore average order value. Fly blind and crash spectacularly.
Your 7-step plan to underperform in 30 days
- Freeze your window. Same display for a month.
- Cancel all recall messages. Let the diary be empty.
- Ban bundles and multi-pair offers. Keep it simple and unprofitable.
- Remove same-week recheck slots. Make fixes slow and painful.
- Bin the checklist. Wing every fitting.
- Hide all performance numbers from staff.
- Never update anything—shop, social, website. Stagnation is your brand.
FAQ
Isn’t discounting the fastest way to win?
Only if you enjoy shrinking margins and training customers to wait for deals.
Do bundles annoy people?
Not when they’re matched to real needs—screens, driving, reading. Patients love having the right tool for the job.
Are no-shows just normal?
Nope. Reminders, easy rebooking, and shorter waits cut them fast.Does social media matter?
Yes. Silence hands your patients to competitors who bother to show up online.er to show up online.
Alternatively…
You could do the exact opposite.
Refresh your displays monthly. Track five simple numbers weekly—remakes (glasses needing to be redone), no-shows, reviews, first-fit success (patients happy at first collection), and average sale. Train your team properly. Send automatic reminders. Offer smart bundles based on what patients actually do all day. Hold same-week recheck slots. Ask for reviews and reply to every one.
And instead of running your practice on sticky notes and guesswork, use modern tools that actually help. For practice management that coordinates appointments, records, and messaging across locations—so nothing falls through the cracks—visit glasson.app.
The practices growing fastest right now aren’t geniuses. They just stopped doing the self-sabotage above. They measure things. They iterate. They make convenience and consistency non-negotiable. They automate the boring stuff so humans can focus on patients.
For operational guides and real workflows that turn this “alternatively” list into daily habits, explore glasson.app/blog.
Success in optical isn’t rocket science. It’s just refusing to fail on purpose. For a portable system that works on any device, anywhere, and makes all of this simple, see glasson.app.
